Literacy Assessments in Polyscriptal Societies: Chinese Character Literacy in Korea and Japan.

Brown, R. A.

Visible Language, v25 n1 p18-39 Win 1991

Examines societies in which varieties and degrees of literacy are possible or ordinary, such as Japan and Korea. Finds that these societies have separate but functionally interrelated writing systems, used for communicatively disparate purposes, differential mastery of which, consequently, has social and economic repercussions. Finds that different literacies entail different social and cognitive consequences. (PRA)